


Parents Weekend

by ladysisyphus



Category: Persona 4
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-30
Updated: 2009-12-30
Packaged: 2017-12-11 14:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the time, buying a house had seemed like a fine idea -- after all, the mortgage on the small, centrally located building was only slightly more expensive than they'd been paying for their apartment during college, and for nearly four times the room; there were, Yosuke had observed, some real benefits to living in the sticks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parents Weekend

**Author's Note:**

> Set five years or so post-game, and therefore just _dripping_ with fanon. Most of it gets explained, though, I think.

At the time, buying a house had seemed like a fine idea -- after all, the mortgage on the small, centrally located building was only slightly more expensive than they'd been paying for their apartment during college, and for nearly four times the room; there were, Yosuke had observed, some real benefits to living in the sticks. The extra space, far from being unnecessary, was actually nice: Yosuke had turned the small garage into a happy home for both his car and his bicycle, and they'd given over the second bedroom to Nanako to do with as she'd seen fit, and with Kanji's help she'd worked it into the most wonderful bedroom a twelve-year-old girl could have wanted.

The down side, however, became clear when Souji had no excuses to give when his mother called him to tell him she and his father wanted to visit their only son in Inaba, and wouldn't it be lovely if they could stay with him? He'd put up a token effort, trying to convince her that the Amagi Inn was a comfortable and spacious vacation spot of choice even for people who already had family in the area, but her tone of voice in her initial request had told him he'd have better luck dissuading an avalanche.

Yosuke'd put on his bravest little soldier face when he'd heard the news that his putative mother-in-law was coming to visit, but had also taken to spending every free hour his half-time job allowed him cleaning the house from top to bottom. Souji didn't stop him, figuring that doing _something_ was better than just sitting and waiting for the inevitable, but knew that Yosuke could scour the place with the force of all the cleaning crews kept by the world's finest hotels, and she'd still find something to complain about. "Honestly," he said, arranging the books on their shelves in subject order because Yosuke had thought it'd look better that way, "you could do everything right and it wouldn't matter. You could bring her a glass of water and she'll find a way to imply that it's just too wet."

"I don't want your mom to hate me," came Yosuke's muffled reply from under the futon, where he'd gone after all the dust bunnies that might have escaped the first four attempts at cleaning the same spot.

Souji sighed, grouping all his books on pedagogical theory in order of the ages of their subjects. "You can't take it personally. It has nothing to do with _who_ you are, and everything to do with _what_ you are."

Even hidden as they were by the furniture, Souji could see Yosuke's shoulders fall. "...I tend to take things like hating me personally."

"I know," Souji said, leaning over and tapping Yosuke's exposed ankle lovingly with one socked foot.

As it turned out, complaining about wetness wasn't an exaggeration at all; the Wednesday afternoon their train arrived, Souji stood on the platform in the pouring rain, which already tended to put all of them on edge anyway, huddled under an umbrella and wondering how the substitute from the first grade was handling his kindergarten class. A surprising number of people had volunteered to come with him to the train, but he'd let them all off the hook, including his uncle -- even though he'd learned shortly after his phone conversation with his mother that she'd asked Dojima first for a place to stay, and he'd given her some lame work excuse, figuring that her next logical step would be a hotel, not her son. Souji thought but didn't say that perhaps they all should have learned better by now about his mother's willingness to impose upon family obligations.

At least his parents' being frequent travellers meant they knew how to pack, and so they stepped off the train with only one small rolling bag each. Souji kissed his mother on the cheek and shook his father's hand, then led them as quickly as he could to where Yosuke was waiting with the engine running. His mother's first words as she pulled her legs into the front seat were, "This is a terribly small car, isn't it?"

And so the visit began.

Thursday, the rain persisted, meaning that travel was almost entirely out of the question once Yosuke drove to work. "And what does Yosuke-kun do?" Souji's mother asked, picking away at the pancakes he'd made.

"He works in the deputy mayor's office, in the city planning division." Souji took a quick breath, having already decided that lying to his mother even by omission was sheer folly. "And in the afternoons, he helps out at his parents' store."

"Junes, right?" asked his father, who was always on steadier ground once the conversation turned to finance and business. "They just had a bad quarter. Terrible shame."

"Well," said Souji drily, wiping down the griddle with a damp cloth, "I'm sure none of it was Yosuke's fault."

Friday, the clouds broke on a beautiful spring morning, and Souji took his parents down to the central shopping district. He'd picked out a few places in particular to shop, mostly ones with the least probability that someone inside would recognize him, but his father had independently noticed the textile shop, and there was no way to say, sorry, we can't go in, I _like_ the people who work there. Fortunately (and he _hated_ the way it made him think 'fortunately'), neither Kanji nor Naoto was around, and Kanji's mother lit up the moment she saw Souji walk in. "Playing hookey, are we?" she teased, bowing to him before throwing her arms around his waist.

"Something like that," Souji smiled, pulling from the hug perhaps a bit sooner than he would have liked. "My parents are visiting for the week, and I want to show them around where I live now."

He saw a twitch at the corner of her mouth, and figured that Kanji must have told her about their impending visit -- and Kanji never held anything back from his mom. "Very pleased to meet you both." She bowed deeply to each of them in turn, and his parents reciprocated, though each with barely concealed note of disdain he knew both of them felt for Japan's less 'modern' courtesies. "It's been such a joy to have Souji-kun back around. My boys missed their dear friend."

"Well, sometimes friendships fall victim to the necessities of geography." His mother fingered the sleeve of an antique kimono that hung on the wall, one that been made by Kanji's great-grandfather. "And what do your boys do?"

Kanji's mother beamed. "One works here with me and sells the things he sews, and the other is in law enforcement."

Souji winced; Kanji's participate in this small-time family business was bad enough, but there wasn't much worse she could have listed for Naoto's profession, at least in Souji's mother's eyes. Her smile broadened, but he could see the contempt calcified at the corners. "I imagine you're very proud," she said, and it wasn't a lie at all, only a commentary about how those kind of provincial goals were all well and good for provincial people -- and only for provincial people. "You must be such an understanding mother, letting them be so independent like that."

His father ended up buying five silk handkerchiefs as presents for business associates, which Mrs. Tatsumi offered to wrap in some of the darling tea-stained paper Kanji had started experimenting with dyeing, and Souji volunteered to come back later and pick them up on his own time, just to get out of there as soon as he could.

Saturday, Yosuke rode his bike to Junes to help with an all-day inventory, leaving Souji the car so that he could take his parents to the Amagi Inn for lunch and time in the hot springs. Yukiko greeted them at the door, looking like springtime herself in a bold pink kimono with sakura blossoms embroidered at the sleeves (though from the way some of the petals appeared to be on fire, Souji could guess who had been responsible for that particular creation). "It's nice to see you again," she beamed.

Souji's father looked around, nodding approvingly at the display of exquisite fans in shadow boxes arranged neatly on the wall. "I see you've taken on quite a bit of responsibility here."

"I enjoy it, actually," Yukiko smiled, showing them the way to the best table in the restaurant. As his parents took their seats, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it briefly, never letting her expression falter an inch. "My mother's health is poor, and the more I can do for the family inn, the more she can handle the less taxing matters and rest to keep her strength up."

"Isn't that so good of you?" His mother smiled, and it almost seemed genuine, though Souji wondered if she'd fully made the connection between the girl she'd met that one summer vacation when Souji and his friends went to the beach, and the young woman standing before her now. "Tell me, do you have a young man in your life to help you with all your responsibilities?" she asked, punctuating the sentence with a meaningful look clearly in Souji's direction.

Before Souji could even open his mouth to tell his mother that that had been _decidedly_ out of line, Yukiko giggled politely and lifted a hand to her mouth. "I'm so pleased you'd consider me daughter-in-law material," she laughed so brightly that even the careful listener might almost miss the knives hidden beneath, "but I'm afraid I'm involved already with a cadet at the Tatsumi Port Island Police Academy."

Souji buried his nose in the menu quick enough to keep his mother from noticing how he'd seen her eye twitch.

Sunday morning, Souji busied himself around the house, helping his parents make sure they hadn't left anything before he took them to their early afternoon train. Yosuke had bravely agreed to hang around all day and to do the driving to the train station, and he and Souji's father had entered into the dedicated activity of reading the newspaper at one another while Souji's mother answered some emails, meaning that the house had actually settled into a nice kind of quiet. And all it took, Souji thought as he peeked in the front closet, was having everyone pretend that everyone else was invisible.

He jumped when the knock sounded on the door, and when he pulled it open, it took every ounce of muscle control in his face not to keep his smile from fading. "How are my boys?" Mrs. Hanamura chirped sweetly, grabbing both sides of Souji's face as she welcomed herself into the house. "Oh, and you must be Souji-san's parents!" she continued without missing a beat.

Yosuke jumped to his feet, dropping the edge of the newspaper in his coffee and not noticing a bit. "Mom," he said, sounding frankly scared. "Hi."

"Hello, hello," she sang back at him, bustling over to greet her son with a quick kiss. She had the sugary bustle of an evil preschool teacher about her, even more pronounced since Yosuke had made the nature of his relationship to Souji more perfectly clear to her -- she didn't approve, that much was obvious, but at least she made an attempt to cover her disapproval with five layers of sweetness, unlike Souji's own mother, who hadn't pulled a punch in her life.

"Mother, Father, this is Mrs. Hanamura," said Souji, closing the front door behind him but leaving it unlocked just in case he had to make a quick escape.

Souji's mother set her PDA on the table and stood, extending her hand toward Yosuke's mom. "Pleased to meet you," she nodded, businesslike in the extreme. "My son tells me you and your husband manage the local Junes franchise."

"We do, yes." Mrs. Hanamura was obviously caught off-guard by the gesture, and though she recovered quickly, she extended only the front part of her fingers into the handshake, something Souji knew his mother considered contemptable in the extreme; she had taught Souji at a young age how to give a proper handshake, vocally expressing her displeasure all the while for people who didn't. "And you two are in ... global business?"

"Diplomatic psychology," Souji's mother corrected her. "My husband is a international financial affairs consultant for a number of large corporations."

"Well, that sounds exciting!" Mrs. Hanamura smiled and folded her hands behind her apron -- and Souji had come to the point where he longer noticed the apron, so much a part of Mrs. Hanamura's everyday attire it had become, but he knew his mother had noticed the apron, and already made all the judgments about it she felt necessary -- then glanced over to Souji's father, who appeared to have decided that this conversation did not need to involve him, and so turned back to the business pages. "It must keep you both so busy, since I know we haven't seen you here to visit Souji-san before."

Souji barely kept his jaw from crashing into the floor, and Yosuke's eyes went visibly wide, but both made the wise decision to keep their respective mouths shut. Souji's mother, however, didn't even flinch. "I can imagine that being the only store of any real size in such an undeveloped area must be similarly demanding."

"Well, now that my son's moved out, I have more time to spend at work, but the flexibility was wonderful when he was younger." Yosuke's mother smiled over at him, and it was as though the long, dark cloud that had fallen over them since his return to Inaba had vanished in a single puff of wind. "I was able to take off whenever he needed me, so I got to watch him grow, and I know stay-at-home mothering isn't for everyone, of course, but I loved having time with my boy. Of course, that's just me."

"I'm sure you found in quite fulfilling," Souji's mother smiled right back. "Were you quite young when you had him?"

"I like to think I still am," Mrs. Hanamura laughed, and Souji resisted the urge to cringe aloud. He'd known academically about the fifteen-year age gap between their mothers, but it was one thing to know and fully another to see it played out face-to-face, the fine lines around Mrs. Hanamura's eyes versus the silver that had taken over fully half of his own mother's hair. He wondered how much Yosuke had prepared his mother to meet Souji's, then realized that there'd been no need for preparation: instinct helped enemies recognize one another in the wild, and that instinct kicked in doubly when one's children were in danger.

Souji's mother chuckled as well, and though Souji may have been the only person in the room capable of seeing it, the subtle tightening of her knuckles showed she'd taken a direct hit. "It must be all the fresh country air. And, of course, the joy of being able to see your son at work with you every day."

"Not as much as I'd like, these days." Mrs. Hanamura shook her head, sighing. "The mayor's office has him so busy doing so many important tasks that soon enough he'll have to give us his apologies and fly from the nest."

With an understanding nod, Souji's mother smiled. "At least it'll be a short flight."

"Mom," Yosuke chimed in, and it wasn't until hearing him speak that Souji had realized how paralyzed he'd been by the situation, as fascinated and horrified as a man watching a train wreck while standing far, far too close to the tracks for his own good. "I've got the pans you let us borrow all washed; do you want me to help you carry them to your car?"

"Oh, would you, dear? That'd be so lovely of you." Mrs. Hanamura looked over toward the kitchen, as though able to see through the walls those imagined mountains of loaned cookware. "Can you get it all yourself, or do you need Souji-san to help you?"

"I'll lend a hand," Souji nodded, and they bustled off together to the kitchen as quickly as decorum would allow, not even daring to look at or speak to one another, just trying to get together anything that even vaguely looked like it had once belonged to the Hanamura household back into the main room quickly enough to keep their mothers from killing one another. They returned in under thirty seconds, and if Souji had grabbed a few hand-me-downs that had originated in the Dojima kitchen, well, that was a mistake that could be sorted out at a later time.

Mrs. Hanamura blinked at the sheer volume of cookware in the boys' arms, but moved quickly toward the door. "Let me get that for you," she offered, pulling it wide before looking back to Souji's parents. "A pleasure meeting you both, and I hope you have a safe trip back and that we'll see you around here again sometime."

"We're looking forward to it already," Souji's mother said, and as Mrs. Hanamura closed the door behind them, Souji felt as though a bomb had just been defused, with only seconds left on the timer.

Fortunately for the all, Yosuke's mother kept her car spotlessly clean, and so there was no trouble finding room to stack all the kitchen accoutrements across the back seat. As Souji closed the back door, Yosuke's mother nodded at him, taking her son's hand in her own. "Well, don't let me keep you from your time with them," she nodded at Souji, keeping a tight grip on Yosuke's hand even as she did so.

"Yes, ma'am." With a quick we'll-sort-this-out-later glance to Yosuke, Souji started back up the front walk -- and then paused halfway and turned back. He may not have approved of them much of the time, and he definitely liked being around them even less, but they were still family, and as much as family obligated offering your relatives a place to say, it also obligated offering apologies on behalf of those same relatives. "Mrs. Hanamura, I don't want you to think--"

"Your mother," she interrupted, looking Souji square in the eye, "has done a very good job of raising you."

A lump formed in Souji's throat so suddenly it threatened to choke him, and he barely swallowed it away enough to say, "Thank you, ma'am." After a beat, he turned away again and started back toward the front door, not even daring to look at Yosuke as he retreated for fear that he might be rendered entirely incapable of speech. Perhaps, he thought as his fingers touched the cold door handle, the trip hadn't been a complete disaster. His spine stiff and his courage renewed, he stepped back inside.

~*~

Yosuke watched Souji's retreating back in silence for a second or two, mostly just because he wasn't confident of his ability to move just yet. He had no idea what he was even thinking or feeling right now -- only a dim awareness that he _thought_ his mouth had pulled up in a tiny smile.

The sound of the other door to the back seat closing broke him out of his daze, and he turned around to find his mother bustling back around the rear end of the station wagon, dusting off her apron. "Well!" she said, brightly, beaming up at him as she patted his arm. "She certainly is a bit of a bitch, isn't she?"

This time there was nothing for it. Yosuke _gaped_.

"M- _Mom_!" he spluttered, when words would finally come out of his throat again -- not helped by the fact that he was already starting to _laugh_ , _hard_ , in spite of himself, and only about 3/4 of it out of horror. His mom waved him off, dismissively.

"Don't 'Mom' me, I'm just saying what everyone's been thinking. If there's one thing I don't miss about living in the city, it's snooty rich mothers sending their maids to parent-teacher meetings and looking down their noses at people who have to _work_ for a living." She paused, apparently satisfied with having delivered her opinion, and then turned a smaller and slightly more honest smile in Yosuke's direction. "I'm just pleased poor Souji-san finally made a good friend like you."

Yosuke just stood there for another second, speechless -- and then, before he even knew quite what he was doing, he had bent down to gather his mother into a sudden hug so tight he nearly lifted her off the ground. "I really do love you, Mom," he murmured against the side of her beauty-shopped hair; and for the first time in what seemed like a horribly long time, could really feel all the way down that he meant it.

She patted his back, apparently over her initial surprise. "I love you too, Yosuke." Her tone was matter-of-fact, routine, but no less sincere for that, he thought. And then she was drawing away to arm's length, patting herself down again. "Don't forget your father wants your schedule for the weekend part-timers by tomorrow, all right?"

"I won't," he promised, sighing slightly, and only waved once before turning back to the door himself. But he was smiling while he did; and it seemed to get bigger on him with every step.


End file.
